Linux

I've been a big fan up Linux for a long time. Starting back in 1997 when my dad and I set up a Debian box on an old machine we had. We were both taking the same UNIX class and really needed an environment that was similar to UNIX to work in.We just used the command line and it was fine for out purposes and the experience of setting it up and learning the OS was valuable. I spent a year as a UNIX operator for a large corp not long after finishing that class.
Fast forward to today, the world of computing has changed a lot. From 486's to Pentium something-or-other (6, 7? Who can tell anymore!). And I'm loading Linux again, at least some things don't change. Well Linux has grown up quite a bit in those years too. Ubuntu Linux (based on the Debian kernel) is a full featured Graphical Interface OS. And there is plenty of software that loads right with it, including the Open Office Suite, and a lot of software that can be loaded right from inside the OS using the package managers.
Gone are the days of running configuration files and make/installs. Well, there is still a lot of software that comes that way, and dependencies are still an issue. So Linux has a ways to go still, but it is a work in process after all.
Matt